to the approaching
conflict. The captains of guns, with their priming boxes buckled round
their waists; the locks fixed upon the guns; the lanyards laid around
them; the officers, with their swords drawn, standing by their
respective divisions.

The quarter-deck was commanded by the captain in person, assisted by
the first lieutenant, the lieutenant of marines, a party of small-arm
men, with the mate and midshipmen, and a portion of seamen to attend
the braces and fight the quarter-deck guns. The boatswain was on the
forecastle; the gunner in the magazine, to send up a supply of powder
to the guns; the carpenter watched and reported, from time to time,
the depth of water in the well; he also walked round the wings or
vacant spaces between the ship's side and the cables, and other
stores. He was attended by his mates, who were provided with
shot-plugs, oakum, and tallow, to stop any shot-holes which might be
made.

The surgeon was in the cockpit with his assistants. The knives, saws,
tourniquets, sponges, basins, wine and water, were all displayed and
ready for the first unlucky patient that might be presented. This was
more awful to me than anything I had seen. "How soon," thought I, "may
I be stretched, mangled and bleeding, on this table, and have occasion
for all the skill and all the instruments I now see before me!" I
turned away, and endeavoured to forget it all.

As soon as the fleet bore up to engage the enemy, we did the same,
keeping as near as we could to the admiral, whose signals we were
ordered to repeat. I was particularly astonished with the skilful
manner in which this was done. It was wonderful to see how
instantaneously the same flags were displayed at our mast-heads as had
been hoisted by the admiral; and the more wonderful this appeared to
me, since his flags were rolled up in round balls, which were not
broken loose until they had reached the mast-head, so that the signal
officers of a repeater had to make out the number of the flag during
its passage aloft in disguise. This was done by the power of good
telescopes, and from habit, and sometimes by anticipation of the
signal that would be next made.

The reader may perhaps not be aware that among civilised nations, in
naval warfare, ships of the line never fire at frigates, unless they
provoke hostility by interposing between belligerent ships, or firing
into them, as was the case in the Nile, when Sir James Saumarez, in
the _Orion_, was unde